Hard disc drives are common information storage devices having of a series of rotatable discs that are accessed by magnetic reading and writing elements. These data elements, commonly known as transducers, or merely as a transducer, are typically carried by and embedded in a slider that is held in a close relative position over discrete data tracks formed on a disc to permit a read or write operation to be carried out. Because the materials from which transducer components are made have relatively large coefficients of thermal expansion, they are particularly subject to shape changes caused by variations in temperature. During operation of the slider, the various layers of the transducing head are heated by, e.g., electrical resistance generated as a result of the operation of the magnetic read and write heads included in the transducer. Heating the transducer causes the head to expand, and thereby protrude toward the magnetic disc. Included is a sensor in the transducer area to sense when contact between the protrusion and the disc has occurred.
As distances between the slider and the disc decrease, due to the ever-growing desire to reduce the size of the disc drive and to pack more data per square inch, the potentially negative impact on any contamination on the slider increases. Unwanted contaminants on the slider can adversely affect fly height behavior, such as elevated or decreased fly height, fly asymmetry in roll or pitch character, excessive modulation, and head-disc crashing or contact by contaminant build up and accumulation on the slider and/or “bridging” mechanisms between the head and disc. All of these mechanisms result in degraded performance of the read or write operation of the head (e.g. skip-writes, modulated writers, weak writes, clearance stability and settling, and incorrect clearance setting).
What is needed is a mechanism to remove contaminants from between the slider and the disc surface, particularly in the area of the protrusion and transducer, while maintaining acceptable contact sensing between the transducer and the disc.